When the Rugby Football Union's management board meets tomorrow at Twickenham, it will not be discussing only a shake-up of the England coaching team. It will also consider proposals from the Premiership clubs to end the costly and protracted club-country dispute, including a demand to negotiate directly with the Lions about the release of players.

As there are Welsh, Irish and Scottish players contracted to Premiership clubs, as well as English, the Celtic countries want the RFU to stand firm and not make the concession but the clubs have gained confidence after winning a battle with Twickenham over the management of elite players before it came to the High Court this year.

Tom Walkinshaw, the Premier Rugby chairman, and his chief executive Mark McCafferty last week met their Twickenham counterparts Martyn Thomas and Francis Baron and produced a document they said would form the basis for replacing the contentious long-form agreement the two sides are bound to until 2009.

The RFU believes the agreement is too full of loopholes to serve properly the interests of the England head coach Andy Robinson.

In return for releasing the players for extra training days with England, the clubs want to deal directly with the Lions, rather than through the RFU, after the dispute at the end of last summer when Twickenham withheld Lions payments from three clubs for not observing an 11-week rest period for players who had toured New Zealand.

The clubs would also like England's share of the money from the Anglo-Welsh Cup to go directly to them and they have asked the RFU to support their plans to make the Heineken Cup more successful commercially. And they want some £2m in compensation.

The management board does not have a decision to make. The Welsh Rugby Union has said it will pull out of the tournament, which was known as the Powergen Cup this season, if the Premiership clubs gain control of it and the Celts steadfastly oppose the plans for the Heineken Cup which Premier Rugby and the French clubs will propose next week. The Lions committee is run by the four home unions.

The English and French clubs have threatened to pull out of the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup after next season because they feel that the competition is not maximising its commercial potential.

Those clubs will next week recommend to a board meeting of European Rugby Cup Ltd that the organisation be spilt into two: the unions, who would be known as A shareholders, would be responsible for governance and structure, while B shareholders, which in the case of France and England would be the clubs, would take charge of the commercial operation.

Although the RFU sympathises with the view of the clubs that ERC has not made the most of the Heineken Cup financially, the final of which next season will be held at Twickenham, it is aware the Celts are not worried by the threat of a withdrawal by the French and the English and that being seen to support a lost cause would serve only to alienate its home union partners.

Robinson has stressed to the RFU during its review of the Six Nations campaign that England's attempt to retain the World Cup will be grievously undermined unless accommodation is reached with the clubs over the way elite players are managed. The management board is expected to come up with a plan of its own, perhaps offering an end to automatic relegation from the Premiership, the overriding concern of most owners, as an inducement to settle. Robinson is expected to be at Twickenham today, ready to be summoned should the management board seek his views on any proposed changes to his coaching team. The meeting will start at 9.30am and is expected to run into the evening.

It will start with a report by John Spencer, the chairman of Club England, a body which met last week, followed by a presentation by Baron.

Nothing has yet been proposed or decided but given that the review has thrown up concerns about the way England have been coached this season, with criticism of both the tactics and selection, the coaching team beneath Robinson faces being dismantled.

Consideration will be given to having two full-time coaches to assist Robinson, one in charge of the backs, the other the forwards, with the names of Brian Ashton and John Wells most heavily canvassed, while other specialist positions, including defence, may be made part-time, which would open the way for Wasps' Shaun Edwards.

The most contentious issue will be whether to appoint a director of international rugby to tread the political minefield that is the English professional game and allow Robinson to concentrate on coaching.

The management board is conducting a parallel review of its elite performance unit but Baron is believed to be against the appointment of a director, fearing it would blur the chain of command. Others on the board support the change.

Demands in full

· To negotiate directly with the Lions over compensation for players rather than through the RFU

· To receive directly their share of revenue from the Anglo-Welsh Cup

· To have more control over revenue from the Heineken Cup and to change the structure of European Rugby Cup Ltd